


Figuring Some Stuff Out

by httpsawesome



Series: Sapphic September 2018 [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Coming Out, F/F, First Meetings, Sapphic September 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/httpsawesome/pseuds/httpsawesome
Summary: When Eponine sees the new girl that Marius has a crush on, she feels jealousy for some reason. Obviously that means she had a crush on Marius that was hidden so deep that not even she knew about it.Sapphic September 2018, Day 1 - First Meetings





	Figuring Some Stuff Out

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be 400 words lol
> 
> also Marius getting crushes so easily is how I reacted to boys growing up so just imagine he's gay too and just doesn't know it yet

When Marius was telling her about a new girl he ‘fell in love with’ she tuned him out and didn’t feel much more than boredom. She let out occasional ‘hmm’s and ‘oh really’s to not insult him, but no person can live through the same conversation hundreds of times with sincere interest and not be insane.

The next day they were sitting together in the crowded lunch room, eating lunch, trying to ignore all the other freshmen ignoring them to catch the attention of the juniors that shared their lunch hour, being as content as a high schooler could be. Marius dramatically grips her shoulders, gasps loud enough to imitate Kirby and whisper-yells “That’s her!”

“What the fuck!” Eponine lets out involuntarily. Marius’ outburst caused her to drop the plastic cup with browning fruit on the table and the juice splattered everywhere. He said nothing, so she followed his gaze to the people in line getting lunch and -

Wow, she was really cute. She had really light blonde hair, and she was nervously fiddling with a purse in the shape of a lemon, and she had jeans with paint splatters on it and it all came together pretty well.

The girl must have sensed them staring because she glanced over in their direction and gave a small wave paired with the automatic flat smile that you give while passing someone in the hallway.

Marius turned away so swiftly that Eponine heard his neck crack faintly, but she paid him no mind. She was too busy forcing herself to turn away like a normal person and not continue staring. Even though she really wanted to. For some reason.

“Should I go talk to her?” Marius asked frantically. Must be a sign he didn’t break his own neck, which is good. Probably.

Eponine shrugged, so Marius took that as a yes and he got up way too fast. He always walked towards her way too fast, but then retreated way too fast and looked Eponine right in the face with huge, anxious, puppy-dogs eyes.

“Just go fucking talk to her, she already noticed you barreling towards her like a tank.” Eponine said, because she is not gentle and is the exact friend Marius needs.

She watches him approach the cute stranger, and then start up what has to be an awkward conversation, but when she sees the cute girl giggle at something he said she feels a pang in her chest.

A pang of. . . something.

It came back when she saw Marius relax into the conversation, and again when he walked with her farther into the line even though he already had a lunch just to keep talking to her.

She never thought of herself as a jealous person, but what she was feeling felt just like what people described as jealousy. She was jealous of. . . this stranger because she captured the attention of Marius? Does this mean she has a crush on him? That’s probably what that means.

When Marius had successfully convinced the girl to join them for lunch and he hadn’t weirded her out with his overbearing awkwardness, Eponine had fully convinced herself that this girl was stealing her man and that she was supposed to stop this relationship from developing at all cost.

“This is Eponine.” Marius announced seemingly to the whole table before hunching down, but charmingly. Even though he was taller than most people in the school, he had an amazing ability to hunch his shoulders to join all the normal people below Earth’s atmosphere.

“Hi,” She gave a more real, relaxed smile then before. “I’m Cosette.”

Eponine momentarily forgot all plans to get her to leave their table and started the conversation for Marius, who seemed to just realized that he acted rather brazenly by asking Cosette to join them and he was trying to simmer in embarrassment.

 

 

 

Within weeks Cosette had found herself fitting nicely in the group, and Eponine still got those jealously pangs whenever she saw Cosette hanging with Marius. Whenever Marius would relay their latest study date, both crush-stricken and over-analyzing, Eponine still felt those jealously pangs.

Even when he had come to her seeming heart broken but not able to explain why, she knew it was Cosette’s fault. She felt satisfied at that.

That doesn’t mean that her and Cosette weren’t friends however, it was quite the opposite. Eponine had no qualms when she was invited with their whole group of friends, and the few times they hung out alone together she was giddy with excitement. She chalked it up to the fact that Marius seemed to have moved on and now she had nothing to worry about, even though she was not at all eager to make the move that Cosette did not.

“Oh my god,” Cosette said while shoveling popcorn in her mouth. “If I watched this while I was younger, I would have had a huge crush on her.”

They were at Cosette’s house watching movies, which had become a weekly venture for the two of them ever since Cosette revealed how few movies she had watched growing up. They would watch something from Eponine’s childhood that Cosette hadn’t seen, and then rip apart how badly it aged. It was really fun and had become something Eponine looked forward to every weekend. They were currently watching The Breakfast Club, and Eponine was excited to divulge on how fucked up it is that Allison had to become more feminine to be happy at the end.

“What do you mean?” Eponine asked innocently, but very engaged in what she could mean.

“I mean,” She paused to brush crumbs off their shared blanket. “With the few things I did was allowed to watch, I always had a fascination with girls that wore all black. Especially if they were like, gothy, but I didn’t know it was a crush until years later of course.”

“I had no idea you liked girls.” Eponine said very casually. She had no idea why she felt jittery at this reveal.

She’s probably homophobic, which is fucked up. She shouldn’t let her obvious bigoted hatred show to Cosette, because it would just destroy her if they stopped hanging out.

“I didn’t tell you that?” She turned her eyebrows up quizzically.

“Not personally but like, I’m not observant with these things.” She shrugged.

“Oh! Well yeah, I’m a lesbian.” And that was the end of that, and they turned back to the movie.

Except. . . Eponine couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Why wouldn’t you notice it was a crush?” Eponine asked.

“Alright,” Cosette resigned soundly before pausing the movie. It was like she got this a lot with straight girls as soon as they found out that she was not in fact one of them. “So when I was a kid I didn’t know I could get a crush on girls, so I just had this weird fascination with them and thought every girl felt just like this. Sometimes, if the girl’s had their own crushes on boys, I would just assume that I had a crush on their boyfriend and that I was jealous of her for dating a guy I didn’t even know existed until they started dating.”

Eponine nodded silently and unpaused the movie, seemingly satisfied.

She was quiet for several minutes before letting out a “oh my god” under her breath.

“I think I. . . “ it was suddenly hard to talk. “I mean I like, relate to that?”

Cosette paused the movie and encouraged her to go on.

“I mean I just - I.” She paused to think. “Does that mean that I’m like - I can’t be, because I have a crush on Marius.”

“Do you?” Cosette asked. “Are you two dating?”

“No, he wouldn’t be interested in me.” Which they know isn’t true because Marius gets crushes so often that a girl having a crush on him would make him have a crush on her.

Cosette just stared blankly.

“But I obviously have a crush on him, because I was jealous when he had a crush on you, and thought you were going to take him away from me.”

“He had a crush on me?”

“Yeah, a huge one!” She exclaimed. “I assumed you rejected him when he came home heartbroken and moving on!”

She thought for a second. “Was it the day he found out that I was gay?”

“I don’t know! I wasn’t invited to that party!” She sounded slightly panicky.

She ignored that comment. “You could call him up now and ask him on a date, if you want.”

“I don’t want that.” She said instinctually. Because she knew, deep down, that she was not actually interested in dating him.

It was silent as Eponine figured some things out.

“I think that,” She said the words slowly. “I would like to ask you out. On a date. A gay one.”

Cosette just smiled sweetly and continued watching the movie.


End file.
